Thursday, April 6, 2017

I Read Trump's Trade Advisor's Anti-China Book. It’s Wilder Than You Can Imagine

By Zeeshan Aleem

Peter Navarro doesn't want you to buy toys that were made in China, because he believes they'll poison your children. He doesn't want you to buy pajamas sewn in China, because he thinks they could catch on fire. He doesn't want you to buy phones that were assembled in China, because he believes they could literally blow up. In fact, he doesn't want you to buy anything at all from China, because he thinks every dollar the country receives will be spent on trying to destroy the US.

Navarro isn't the disheveled eccentric you might find lurking on the fringes of a demonstration, eagerly trying to stuff handmade pamphlets about the perils of globalization into your palm. He's one of the most powerful economic officials in the Trump administration.

Navarro is the director of the National Trade Council, a newly created office in the White House. He's one of the main figures shaping the administration's trade policy as it struggles to balance the GOP's traditional commitment to free trade with Trump's stated belief that countries like China are gaming the system to improve their own economies at the expense of America's working class.